This is such a difficult situation. You’ve been planning your wedding for months, and it is just around the corner when a parent passes away. Maybe they have been ill for a long time, and you were just hoping they would be able to be there. Maybe it was completely unexpected, and a horrible accident occurred. Now the question is, do you continue with the wedding as planned, or do you postpone everything? This question has no clear-cut answer, but in this blog, we’ll look at why you would or wouldn’t.
Before we consider any reason for or against continuing with the wedding ceremony, it’s important to realise that this decision is your own and there is no right or wrong. At the same time, no two situations are identical and there might be unique factors that play a role in your situation that we won’t even mention here. You have to make the choice that you (and your partner) will be at peace with.
Why you might not want to continue with the wedding
You will have many people saying that you should not have the wedding ceremony if a parent passed away just before it, and there are some logical reasons why you don’t want to hold this event.
Your wedding is a joyous occasion and the death of such an important member of the family, especially if you have a strong relationship, can take the joy out of it. When you are dealing with grief, chances are that you won’t be in the right frame of mind to take wedding photos, dance, and smile, but these are the things you would want to do at your wedding. It is a very confusing mix of emotions that you would have to deal with.
Your religious or cultural customs could also greatly impact your choice to not have the wedding. If both the wedding and the funeral of a loved one have complicated and lengthy rituals, it might be impossible to have them at roughly the same time and you have no other choice but to postpone your wedding.
Why you might want to continue with the wedding
Finances could be a huge reason for not postponing a wedding depending on what arrangements you can make with your venue and vendors. If it is not possible for you to reach an agreement with them to simply move to a different date and you are going to lose the majority of the money you invested into the event, it is reasonable to not postpone. For many people, especially in current economic situations, you’ll not have the finances to absorb the implications of a postponed wedding and organise a new date with the same fanfare as the original.
Holding the wedding might make you feel guilty, but if you know that your parent would have wanted you to do so and would have wanted you to be happy above all else, there is no need to feel guilty. There are beautiful ways in which you can honour the people that could not be there even if the death occurred recently.
Final thoughts
No matter what stage of life you are in, the death of a parent is not easy. When you are just about to get married, it can really make things exceptionally difficult to bear. I want to say again what I said in the beginning, how you handle this is ultimately your choice. You and your partner are there to support each other and you can decide together what is best to do. Other people don’t have to agree with your choices.
